"Mucho Loma" | |
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Rocky and Bullwinkle episode | |
Episode no. | Season 5 Episode 2 (6 segments) |
Directed by | Gerard Baldwin, Pete Burness, Bill Hurtz, Gerry Ray, Bob Schleh, George Singer, Ernie Terrazas |
Written by | George Atkins, Chris Hayward, Chris Jenkins, Lloyd Turner |
Production code | 311–316 |
Original air date | 1963–1964 |
Mucho Loma is the second story arc from the fifth season of Rocky and Bullwinkle (originally titled The Bullwinkle Show). It was broadcast on NBC during the 1963–1964 television season. It was unique, in the sense that this was one of only three story arcs where neither Boris Badenov nor Natasha Fatale, the usual nemeses of Rocky and Bullwinkle, did not appear. The villain in this story was a character named Zero, a parody of Zorro who had a propensity to use a branding iron with a zero on it.
Zero, known for his branding iron, banging pails and cap pistols, was terrorizing a community called Mucho Loma (the name meaning Much Mud in fractured Spanish), when Rocky and Bullwinkle come to save the day and stop the mad desperado.
The town of Mucho Loma (Spanish for 'Much Mud') spend their days trudging through their mudfilled town, which tires them out and in need of much sleep once evening comes. One day, a man with a bad singing voice comes into town during the night and begins to sing a song. He is promptly locked up for a year for disturbing the peace. Upon his release, he vows to get back at the citizens of Mucho Loma. Taking a black outfit and a branding iron with a zero on the end, he becomes the masked rider known as Zero, keeping the citizens awake at night by causing as much noise as he can, and using his branding iron on anything he can.
Rocky and Bullwinkle become embroiled in the town's plight when they accidentally cause damage to some buildings. They are instructed to capture Zero in order to get out of their prison term, but their plans all fail. Rocky even intends to dress up Bullwinkle to look like Zero in hopes to scare the desperado off, but the townspeople mistake Bullwinkle for Zero...until Rocky manages to lure Zero out into the open with a game of tic-tac-toe. Zero is eventually relegated to work the scoreboard for the New York Mets as punishment. (The Mets, then fairly new to Major League Baseball, were one of the worst teams in the sport's history at the time, especially in their ignominious, record-setting inaugural season; their inability to score runs meant that Zero would have plenty of opportunities to use his zero marker on the Shea Stadium scoreboard.) The episode also ends with Rocky and Bullwinkle in the town jail, finishing out their sentences.